The Breathing Game
by Secret Staircase
Summary: Chitose doesn't tell anyone she has a friend. Chitose & Akane.


Another one for a prompt on Dreamwidth. This one was _Chitose/Akane, do you want to play with me?_

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><p>Chitose doesn't tell anyone she has a friend. They'd say she's finally getting over her shyness – she's not – or they'd ask questions that Chitose doesn't want to answer. She likes having secrets, always has, and this is a good secret.<p>

Akane knows places even Itsuki doesn't. She shows Chitose how to open the door to the Heaven Bridge, and in the Kiryu House, nobody bothers them. The house has hardly been used for years, but Akane knows the way around. At the beginning, she held Chitose's hand to guide her.

"It's like my house, but backwards," she tells Akane. "The rooms are different, but they're all in the same place."

"The houses are twins," Akane says. "They were built to be the same."

They play hide-and-seek sometimes, or just explore the rooms, which are starting to fall into disrepair. Some parts of the house have already collapsed. Akane can walk into these places as if there's nothing in her way, and Chitose doesn't know how, but she knows she can't follow.

"I can't go in there," she'll say, when Akane slips between fallen beams and stands on the other side.

"Why not?" Akane says, giggling. "It's easy." She reaches for Chitose's hand and tries to pull her along, but Chitose knows it's not possible.

Other times they sit and talk. Akane doesn't get to go out much, so she asks about the village, though some of the things she says make no sense. She talks as if she lives in the Kiryu House, but nobody _lives_ in here.

"I don't go outside much, either," Chitose says. "I don't see too well, and I get scared when there are too many people. But my brothers tell me everything, so I don't get lonely. Don't you have anyone to talk to?"

"I have a sister," Akane says, but it turns out that Akane's sister is just a doll, a doll as big as she is, that looks exactly like her. Chitose thinks that's a bit creepy, but it wouldn't be polite to say so.

They talk about growing up. "You can come and live with me," Chitose says. "You'll be the husband and I'll be the wife. Or you can be the wife."

"Girls can't be husbands," Akane says. "We'll have to both be wives."

They play other games, too. They see how long they can hold their breath for, and when that gets boring, Akane makes Chitose lie down on the floor, sits on top of her and wraps her hands around Chitose's throat so tightly Chitose can't breathe. It's only for a few seconds, and it's sort of exciting, the way her heart pounds afterwards, though she doesn't like the pain, and once it gave her bruises.

"I never played this game before," she says, the first time.

"It's not really a game," Akane says. "It's what they make twins do, only we shouldn't do it for very long. It's bad if you do it for long. You want to try it on my sister?"

But Chitose doesn't like touching that big creepy doll, so she shakes her head, and they play something else that day.

The night of the festival, Chitose's alone in the house. Itsuki's locked up because that stupid Yae ran away, and that isn't fair. She wishes she had her friend to console her. Chitose might like to play the breathing game on the doll today; she'd pretend it was Yae.

But Akane doesn't come and at some point, the silence of the house gets scary. Chitose hides in her favourite closet, the big one in the deluxe tatami room, where she can hear anyone going past. It gets later, and quieter, and colder, and darker, and she gets more frightened. There's a presence in the room, as if someone's waiting for her to crawl out of the closet so they can pounce on her.

_Help me, Itsuki,_ she writes in her diary, and when she runs out of paper she starts to write it on the walls. _Help me, help me, help me._ Doesn't he hear her bell ringing? Doesn't he hear her crying?

It's not Itsuki who comes, though. Something like a cold wind creeps into the closet and suddenly there's someone sitting behind her.

"I found you," Akane whispers, and Chitose doesn't quite like the way she draws out the words. It sounds playful, but... dangerous, too.

"How did you get in here?" she asks.

Akane doesn't answer that. "Would you like to play with me?"

"No," Chitose says. "I'm scared. I don't want to play right now." She has a sudden, horrible idea that Akane has brought the doll, and it's sitting in here with them, in the dark, its head lolling sideways. "Is... is your sister here?"

Akane giggles, and Chitose doesn't like that, either. "She'll be here soon," she says. "She came back, you know, so it's not like I killed her. Let's play. It'll be fun." Her cold hands reach up. They have always been cold, Chitose realises. She has never felt them warm.

She tries to press herself back into the corner, but there's nowhere to go. "I don't want to. There isn't enough space in here. Akane, stop it, I don't want to!"

"It's okay," Akane croons. She's still dragging the words out in that unnatural way that makes Chitose's skin crawl. "If I do this, we'll be together forever."

"No," Chitose whispers, but the hands close around her throat, and this time, they don't let go.


End file.
